In the News (from ScienceBlog): “By simulating 25,000 generations of evolution within computers, Cornell University engineering and robotics researchers have discovered why biological networks tend to be organized as modules – a finding that will lead to a deeper understanding of the evolution of complexity. …

“The team discovered that evolution produces modules not because they produce more adaptable designs, but because modular designs have fewer and shorter network connections, which are costly to build and maintain. As it turned out, it was enough to include a ‘cost of wiring’ to make evolution favor modular architectures. …

“To test the theory, the researchers simulated the evolution of networks with and without a cost for network connections.

“’Once you add a cost for network connections, modules immediately appear. Without a cost, modules never form. The effect is quite dramatic,’ says Clune.

“The results may help explain the near-universal presence of modularity in biological networks as diverse as neural networks – such as animal brains – and vascular networks, gene regulatory networks, protein-protein interaction networks, metabolic networks and even human-constructed networks such as the Internet.

“’Being able to evolve modularity will let us create more complex, sophisticated computational brains,’ says Clune.

“Says Lipson: ‘We’ve had various attempts to try to crack the modularity question in lots of different ways. This one by far is the simplest and most elegant.’”

My Comment: Nature takes into account absolutely every known and still unknown condition and parameter and makes the solution optimal. We have to accept its solution as ideal and mandatory to follow. It is in imitation of nature and is the key to our proper development.
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Opinion (from PR Newswire): “Business executives around the world believe that protectionism is on the rise in both developed and emerging markets, according to a new Economist Intelligence Unit survey and report commissioned by UK Trade & Investment. …

“Ian McCartney, UK Trade Minister responsible for UK Trade & Investment, commented: ‘World trade has been one of the principal engines of global economic growth over recent decades, and increased protectionism risks putting the brakes on that growth. Globalisation should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat. Protectionism leads to less trade, lower growth and therefore lower employment and more poverty.’”

My Comment: There is no solution to this without rebuilding the world, or rather the human! Only a view of the world as a single integrated whole in which humanity produces only rational necessities, equally shares everything necessary for existence, is content with integral fulfillment, and feels a single integral space will lead the world out of the crisis. We feel the labor pains of the birth of a new, not individual, but integral attitude to the world. In the end, economic protectionism will lead to world wars.
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Question: Today, when life seems tasteless and humanity encounters endless problems, what can the wisdom of Kabbalah tell us about the meaning of life?

Answer: Kabbalah says that we can find the meaning of life only if we are adapted to nature. Then we will receive fulfillment, which is in fact the meaning of life.

So I can receive fulfillment if I am adapted to nature. The adaptation generates a connection, and then whatever is in nature is also found in me. I become the inner system that is connected to nature.

How can we connect to nature, to something that is whole, eternal, and great? It is only possible through the similarity of properties. The similarity of properties refers to being in bestowal and connection, just like the rest of nature is connected. The still, the vegetative, and the animate levels in nature are all connected to one system. But it’s as if man is left outside the system in order to connect to it by himself consciously, willingly, by making his own efforts in order to find the way to fit into it and become an integral part that completes the whole system, just like the last part in a jigsaw puzzle.

This is what we have to reach. To the extent that we approach this state, we will feel better since there is a whole life in the general picture of the puzzle.

So the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about how to receive, to gain, to make the best out of our life in which everyone suffers, and to move on to a better life.

This is fulfilled by connection. The connection depends on a person’s ability: There are people who are brought to high levels of spiritual connection and unity by their deficiency, and there are people are brought to the simple “common” connection by their desire and deficiency, but one way or the other, the future of the world is in connection. So everyone will surely find his own form and intensity of connection according to his internal attributes. The main thing is to complete the picture.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us. So, it has nothing to do with religions and beliefs. If a person feels bad and connection seems the right solution for the world, if he feels internally that this it worth it, that it is good, beneficial, and desirable, then he will reach the wisdom of Kabbalah or the system of the integral education.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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We can find many excuses for ourselves, but if we face the laws of nature, then we must comply with it. The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about absolute laws. The Kabbalists explain to us how the system of reality is structured. And we think that they aren’t rigid laws, but are something that changes according to our desire: the relations between people, the connection between man and nature, destiny, luck, and various events of yesterday or tomorrow.

All of these illusions come from the lack of knowledge of the system, from the lack of understanding that it is defined in an exact system and it is not in our power to change it. There is nothing to do. It is that way and only that way! We even treat science as if we can somehow get around it. This comes from the lack of feeling that you are connected with the system by thousands of threads, billions of nerve fibers.

Imagine that coming from you are an endless amount of threads that connect you with all of reality, and all of them are especially sensitive, like exposed nerves. Everyone knows what an unbearable pain it is when you suddenly touch an exposed nerve from an aching tooth. All of us have felt this once. And from you are millions and billions of exposed nerves that connect you with others. All of us are wrapped in these thin white fibers, as if immersed in gel.

Imagine how sensitive you are to everything that happens in any place, anywhere. You depend on everyone and they, in turn, are dependent on you. We are tightly connected through these thin, nerve fibers, completely in everything. No matter what happens, your question is if this touches your nerve or not.

We are now detached from this understanding, but slowly we get closer to it through suffering. The drill between us doesn’t directly touch our nerve. It only drills a hole in the tooth and sometimes causes a certain pain, which we are able to bear. And sometimes we even manage to escape from the dentist, refusing treatment, what will be, will be.

And here it is not possible to give anesthesia and get rid of the pain, since the pain is the measure of the problem. The pain points to the place of the problem; you can fix it: go to the doctor and take medicine. In this case, if you are able to cure a physical disease, then it is allowed for you to use anesthesia. But it is not possible to give spiritual anesthesia since you have to correct its reason. And for this, you must discover the system of connections.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How should a person involved in integral upbringing of the world look in order to be attractive to all?

Answer: A person involved in integral upbringing should express confidence that he has found a stable point in his life. This is precisely what everyone is lacking today. Indeed, the most stable point in life can only be in a person who exists at the center of all interactions, who is tied with everyone through the correct integral connection: with family, society, the environment, business, and nature. The public has to perceive him as stable, comfortable, free, and friendly. After all, he doesn’t have any problems and he doesn’t have to constantly protect himself, to be on guard, or to fence himself away from any person.

He has to radiate well-wishing confidence and friendliness precisely because inside he is whole. He is calm and stable; he is just the way children want to see their father. In this case, he will be a magnet for people. Then they will be asking themselves, “How can I achieve such a state where I feel absolute comfort?” This is because inner balance and calm attract people.
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From the “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 1/20/13

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Question: On one hand, it is written: “There is none else besides Him,” but on the other, a person wonders: “If there is none else besides the Creator, if everything depends on Him, then what can I do?…”

Answer: “There is none else besides Him” means that everything comes from the Creator so that I reveal it for real and stay with Him in adhesion. He leaves me space to do my work, He does not block me from every angle, but rather gives me an opportunity to become like Him.

But in every other regard, it is true that “there is none else besides Him.” I should not think that there is anyone else near me. Seeing the multitude of factors that influence me, I must understand that essentially, all these factors are just He alone.

Sometimes I feel positivity coming from Him, and sometimes negativity; besides, these pluses and minuses can take various forms. But at the end I tell myself: “No, He is always one big positive, and He only influences me through pluses of various kinds. Meanwhile, I sometimes perceive them as pluses and sometimes as minuses. Thus, I must change myself so everything would become a plus to me.” Then, He and I will be equal, and this state will be called adhesion.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Igrot,” Letter 24

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Item 252, Lesson 24

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol 3, Part 9, Question 159, Lesson 34

“A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar” (Line: “Analysis,” Starting with: “And since The Zohar appeared,”) Lesson 8

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Rabash, “What is a Cup of Blessing Should be Full in the Work”: But before the Yenika (suckling) there is the phase of Ibur (gestation), which means that the upper corrects him. This can be when a person is like an embryo in his mother’s womb, as the embryo annuls himself before the mother and has no mind of his own, but as the sages say, “An embryo is part of his mother and eats what his mother eats,” and has no entity of his own to ask any questions, but he doesn’t rise as a name. This is called that he is mute and has no mouth to ask questions.

This is the time when a person can go above reason with his eyes closed, and believe in the faith of the sages and go to the end. This is called Ibur, that he has no mouth, Ibur means (TES, part 8) “the level of Malchut which is the more restricted smallness called Ibur, which stems from Evra and Dinin, as it says “and the Lord became impregnated for you.”

And the matter of Evra and Dinin should be explained, since the body resists the work that a person should go above reason with his eyes closed, and so a person must constantly overcome, which is called “wrath, rage and trouble,” since it is hard work to constantly advance by overcoming and to annul one’s self before the upper, so that the upper will do whatever it wants with a person. This is called Ibur, which is the more restricted smallness.

This is a difficult situation, since a person is not used to such an attitude. To annul one’s self completely is even more difficult than simply lowering himself, and being in smallness. We already have the preparations for smallness by nature, but the state of an Ubar (embryo), which means the transition (same root in Hebrew) from one world to another with regards to using our desires, the inner discernments, is a very difficult process.

Here we are required to totally annul ourselves in faith above reason in order to rise above all the discernments and the desires that are evoked in us. It isn’t a passive state as it may seem. A person has to participate in it and to make his greatest efforts in order to overcome the obstacles he encounters. Otherwise it will be impossible to annul the previous level.

He is called an embryo since he cannot work with the discernments and the intention of in order to bestow yet, and so he annuls himself before the bestowal of the upper and allows the upper to do whatever it does with him by accepting everything as good, blessed, in full consent, understanding and delight. In that case he is called a spiritual embryo.

From this we should understand how we should prepare ourselves and the group in order to enter the state of an embryo in the spiritual world. We have already talked quite a lot about this, and now we should try to fulfill this.

It is a state in which a person feels pressure, the Dinim that he encounters. He doesn’t understand why this happens in the world around him and what the world’s attitude towards this whole process is, but eventually he sees how the whole world begins to enter the state of Ibur in preparation for the new birth.

It is because the whole world is in a person and so a person sees how the whole world, all these discernments, enter the state of Ibur. To the extent that he annuls his previous attitude to everything that happens, he discovers that the whole world around him becomes the reality of the spiritual embryo. When he annuls himself, he sees that the Creator operates in everything around him.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13

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Question: How does the Creator allow me to make mistakes? Doesn’t He want me to advance faster?

Answer: The Creator must open all the treasures of the Light for you. These treasures can be opened only by the depth of the desire that is attained in the dark. You have to feel your desires and to enter them. But if you really enter them and sink into them, there is no way you will be able to come out of them.

So the Creator’s work is to give you the vessels of receiving in their real form, completely separated from the Light. But if you remain totally disconnected, you will never be able to exit the abyss of your desire.

But if you are not immersed in them and are not included in these vessels of receiving that are totally opposite from the Creator, you will not be able to attain Him and will not be able to stand before Him as an independent entity.

Therefore, at every step of the way, you are left to stumble and fall slightly, and to go wrong a little. This “little” bit can be very severe, and at each stage there are very hard trials. But all this depends on how you were supposed to receive them according to the plan of creation.

If we could have received the whole Torah as we should have from Abraham onward (if we can say so in retrospect), then there would be no evil in the world. The whole world would advance in the best, most wonderful way towards correction.

The question is whether we could manage without the destruction of the First and Second Temples and without the four exiles at the end of which we are now. I don’t know how it could happen otherwise…perhaps all the corrections could take place in spiritual discernments.

We shouldn’t think about that now. Our job is to unite all the conditions that we were given—the Creator’s attributes and the created being’s attributes by the system of the Torah, and then we will reach correction.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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